


Know Your Marauders

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Marauders' Era, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-22
Updated: 2009-07-26
Packaged: 2019-01-19 13:58:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12411645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Finished. One good kiss gets Lily to figuring about James. Soon after, some mysterious advice keeps her wondering. This time, Lily's definitely probing into a particular bespectacled problem.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

  
Author's notes: 1  


* * *

 

            [](http://astele.co.uk/UnknowableRoom/Chapter/Details/profile/CandyCaneJones/icons)Discerningly, Lily adjusted her bra and panties with an expert hand and fluffed her hair before the gilt mirror in the girls’ loo. Dinner had been an utter fiasco between everything she and James had exchanged but Lily wasn’t focused on the fight. Tonight, she was going to satisfy herself once and for all as to whether or not they would be good together. How they acted towards each other barely mattered at all.

            The small crystal vial contained drops of sweet scent that Lily applied to the soft nape of her neck and just between her neckline and on her wrists. The never-fail perfume was Lily’s perennial and singular fragrance, even if Alice thought her to be completely backwards as a fashionista.

            She surveyed herself, satisfied. She was hot. It would be easy as pie, especially with James’ overly passionate nature. The only danger was in his jumping her there and then.

            Confidently pushing open the door to the loo, Lily strode purposefully towards the Head Rooms. Choosing the odd night where Sirius had the detention and Remus was a werewolf was brilliance on her part. Peter was too boring to be tolerated for long; James was sure to be hers.

            Alice took her arm in the Common Room, bristling busy as usual.

            “Lily,” she said conspiringly. “I heard that you and Potter might soon become an item.”

            Lily briefly wrinkled her brows in annoyance. Alice could be so cloying and ridiculous sometimes. They would “become an item” indeed. Who _said_ that anymore? One interrupted kiss was also a poor indication of any kind of relationship, as Alice knew well and ignored.

            “That’s what I’m going to find out,” replied Lily smartly, removing her wrist from a surprised Alice’s painted nails and hurrying through the small door off the Common Room.

            He was there. Sprawled like a farm over the entire red sofa and laying casually with his legs over the back and side of the couch. His shirt was several buttons open and his tie was discarded lazily. Was it unexpected at all? Books and parchment flaked all over the floor and chair. His Potions book was open in his hands. Nice hands. He looked up when she entered.

            “Evans,” he said automatically, but something caught his eye as she stepped into the flickering firelight. There was a shiny smudge of something on her pink lips that curved enticingly. Her hair picked up all the colors of the fire and mixed them with rippling red, and she had done something to her eyes that made them pluck at his beating heart. James raised his eyebrows and licked his chapped lips.

            Lily drew closer, noting how frighteningly simple this would be. He wouldn’t resist and if she was honest, she didn’t really want him to. The black hair that flicked over his eyes and glasses looked soft and those hands. Those _hands_. Those were the reason she ever considered giving him the time of day in the first place.

            “Evans, I don’t know what to tell you but—”

            “But what, Potter? We need to talk.”

            “Talk?” he said disbelievingly. Lily stood over him and slid herself down onto the little, paper-strewn coffee table. He watched her settle onto his open Charms book.

            “No, you’re right. Not talk.”

            James raised himself to one elbow and to her height. They faced each other evenly. Both smelled the charred, sleepy fire; the open textbooks; the fresh, spicy night air gusting through the window slit; and the whiff of the other person. Odd, but Lily found herself breathing hard. So was James.

            He saw her hair, shiny and feathered away from her oval face. Her lashes fanned the green eyes that had haunted his dreams once or more. Lily was perfect. She leaned in and he did too, just to hear what she had to say.

            “I have to know,” she whispered.

            “About what?” He was whispering too.

            “About us, dammit.”

            “We’re perfect, Evans.”

            They breathed for a moment, their breaths mingling in a minty eddy. An uncoiling strand of Lily’s special perfume caught James’ attention. His hand slid into her hair and his lips pressed against hers.

            Lily was not shy. She scooted forward to make it easier for him as he molded his lips again and again on her warm mouth. Everything was rhythmic, seamless, and dreamy. Breaking their lips apart for just a second, Lily put her head down and rubbed her cheek against his, roughly, assertively, just once. She had wanted to do that, and his cheek was just as firm and lightly rough as she had expected. His glasses were cold next to her eye. When she put her lips back on his, she was rewarded with the tip of his tongue.

            He was good, no doubt. She didn’t know that James had nearly died inside when she had rubbed against his cheek, but she did know that he had kissed her perfectly. He was still doing it, pressing his entire self against her through only his lips and his hand that rubbed in her hair. Lily smiled. She felt beautiful.

            They broke apart when the clock chimed at nine o’clock. It was slow and reluctant, unlike the quick snapping Lily remembered between Alice and Peter during the Cup celebration party last year. Alice would die of embarrassment if Lily mentioned it now. Lily was sad that Alice had changed.

            But James was in the present now, so Lily should be, too. The gentle golden swing of the clock’s pendulum reflected twice in his glasses and ducked between the gold in his own eyes.

            “Are we going to talk about this?” he asked quietly. She was pleased to hear a distinctly rasping note in his voice. Unfortunately, she still had to answer.

            “Dunno,” replied Lily in a whisper. His knuckles gently pushed against her scalp. “I need to go to bed.”

            James was stricken. He pulled back sharply, but then he exhaled on a whistle.

            “I guess you’re right.”

            Lily bit her lip and nodded. Something had shifted uncomfortably out of her control there on the coffee table. Why were her eyes welling up?

            James reached out his hand and covered hers. His hand was very, very warm. The gesture was cute and saving.

            “Goodnight, Lily.”

            “Goodnight, James.”

            Lily stepped backwards, eyes locked with James for each step, and then she melted into the curved shadows beyond the fireplace.

_Hey there. This is my first ur.org story even if it is not my first fanfiction. I am not sure about it, but it will not be too long and I’ll take any questions. It’s a whimsical story. We’ll see. Thanks for reading =)_


	2. Inciting Incident

            Fuzzy and disoriented, Lily awoke early the next morning. It was Friday morning. Alice slept to her left. The dark, sleeping shapes of the other girls still lay smudged on the bedclothes.

            Lily groaned lightly. What _had_ she done? Why? She ran through all of her motives for kissing James while the sunlight gradually brightened the smooth glass of the east-facing window.

            For one thing, Lily sort of liked James definitely kind of maybe. She certainly thought he was handsome; she always had. Alas, she was attracted to him.

            Another reason was that in other years, Lily had been concerned about how nice he was to everyone else, but now she was more or less concerned with how nice he was to her. Besides, Lily didn’t think she was very nice anymore. When the Slytherins— _with_ Severus Snape whom she had _just finished defending after_ OWLs— had called her a Mudblood in the beginning of sixth year, Lily had punched Bellatrix Black in the nose and drawn blood; hexed Dolohov with a painful Stinging Hex; and taken away the fifty points Snape had earned for his house during the past week. That was the last time she felt bad about fighting back. Lily was no longer self-righteous to James Potter when he lost his temper and showed it. She recognized something like that in herself.

            Finally, Lily knew that while her friendships might soon slip away after seventh year, James and the Marauders wouldn’t. There was something sticky and permanent about those boys that endeared them to her, as hard or intense as they might be. Lily had many of her own friends, but some—like Alice—were changing, and others—like Fabian Prewett—were simply wearing thin on her. She knew she wouldn’t keep up with them after Hogwarts.

            A stupid sparrow beat once at the window with a fluttery tap. Then it spiraled away down the tower with its mate. Lily wasn’t sure about her feelings on sparrows. Flying things made her a little uncomfortable. That might have been a Quidditch-linked thought. She groaned.

            Turning over on her pillow, Lily thought of how she had been friends with each Marauder at odd points during Hogwarts. For all of second year, she and Sirius had commiserated together about the dismal nature of the slow Hufflepuff girls in Defense Against the Dark Arts. During third year, Peter had saved her a chocolate puff during a spur-of-the-moment Christmas party. Remus and Lily were current friends because of prefect duties. Right now, Lily knew Remus better than any of the others. He had even shared his deepest and fuzziest secret with her over the summer.

            James…she had never been friends with him. She didn’t know why. He had never seemed interested in her, for one, until he started liking her just when she was annoyed with him over Severus Snape. The OWLs incident was the worst—but not the first—of James’ campaigns against Snape. If he had asked her out before he had put bubotuber pus in Snape’s pudding…well…things might be different.

            Weight shifted at the end of Lily’s downy mattress. She wriggled her sleepy head over the covers and saw Minnie Bloxam perched on the edge of her bed in a nightdress. Lily didn’t particularly like or dislike her. She shivered upright.

            “What is it, Bloxam?”

            “I hear you’ll be taking up with Potter soon,” said the girl in a quiet, musical tone. Minnie was a small slip of a girl with lungs like a hippogriff’s and a voice as nice as a phoenix’s. Lily reflected momentarily on how Minnie Bloxam was like many magical beasts put together.

            “And how did you hear that?”

            “Alice Prewett,” answered Minnie after a moment. It was most probably true. Minnie, to Lily’s knowledge, had never lied about anything.

            Lily sat up and grumbled, wrapping herself firmly in her comforter.

            “So a rumor from Alice makes you wake up early just to bloody confirm? How did you know I would be awake?”

            “I saw you tossing about. Besides, I never sleep well before Fridays.”

            That was weird. Why hadn’t Lily ever noticed?

            “Why are you here?” moaned Lily out loud. She didn’t want to think complicated things about James right now. She knew, _knew_ , she had been too forward with him last night, and it was catching up to her a bit like a hangover of memories.

            “Is it true?” persisted Minnie.

            “How should I know?”

            “Answer me, Lily.”

            “Why?”

            “Go on and just _do_ it.”

            Lily let out an exasperated sigh and lurched back into her pillow.

            “It’s true, Minnie. As a matter of fact, it has already started. We kissed last night but Alice doesn’t know. Then again, I couldn’t care if she did or not. Are you happy now?”

            Minnie considered the information for a moment, smacking her wide lips.

            “I’m content with your answer,” she answered truthfully. “But in that case, I have a piece of advice.”

            “ _What is it, Minnie_?”

            “You should get to know his friends or things will never work out between you two,” replied Minnie.

            Lily squinted suspiciously.

            “Didn’t you date Remus Lupin last year?” she remembered, dredging up some long-forgotten bit of gossip that didn’t really involve her.

            “Yes, and I didn’t know him at all,” admitted Minnie with something of a blush. “I don’t think you could get to James except by his friends, unless you did something terribly cruel. All I’m saying is that before you commit yourself, you should brush up on the Marauders.”

            Lily paused. She considered Minnie Bloxam’s squarish chin and big dark eyes, both part of a very sincere face. There were noises from the other beds.

            “Why are you telling me this stuff, Minnie?”

            Minnie blinked, surprised.

            “I think you and Potter would be bloody cute, but you had better not botch it up.”

            “Oh…Right then. Thanks.”

            Nodding, Minnie steadied herself on her feet and marched back to her bed.

            Unable to help herself, Lily smiled a foolishly wide grin and hunkered down for a few more moments of peace under her covers. Cute. They were cute, dammit.


	3. The Planted Seed

 

            Lily and James said nothing to each other that morning and except for a few steamy glances in Lily’s direction, James was good enough not to boast about their kiss all over the school. Lily might not have minded if he _had_ done it, but she would have minded talking to James about it. At all. Lily tiptoed past the door of the Heads’ Parlor off the Common Room with alarming nervousness. The first class of day, however, was NEWTs Potions replete with all four Marauders.

            Peter was partnered with James today and he fumbled with the scales and the knives. James wasn’t paying attention; he was scribbling something in a notebook that he and Sirius passed back and forth. Occasionally, he reached up to scramble his hair absently. Lily sternly reprimanded herself for watching this casual gesture over and over again.

            She hearkened back to where this began while her potion boiled. Only a few weeks ago, James had surprised Lily when he had gone to kiss her cheek and instead, somehow, reached her lips. They had both said they were very sorry about it. Having happened in the Great Hall, it was sort of embarrassing and yet…telling as well. That was why she kissed him again.

            Peter had noticed her staring vaguely at their table. His eyes were quick and sneaky, so Lily winced and mashed at her roots with contrived concentration. Benjy Fenwick, Lily’s favorite male confidante, nudged her with his shoulder. He was a Ravenclaw of average height and weedy structure, with brown freckles and brown eyes. He was also her Potions partner.

            “What’s wrong, Lily?”

            “Nothing, I just…wonder about Pettigrew sometimes. Bit off, isn’t he?”

            “’Course he is. Talks with loads of different people though. I think everyone knows Pettigrew even if no one but Potter and such like him. Why,” grinned Benjy, “did Potter bring up Pettigrew while you snogged him yesterd—”

            “Benjy, shut up, please,” said Lily delicately. Benjy had known about her plan for last night. He merely waggled his eyebrows and added more minced shrivelfig to their mix. Benjy’s studious competence allowed Lily some time for a little bit of detective work. 

            She took a small parchment book and chose a crisp page near the center. Lily dated it neatly and paused with her quill quivering over the ink lines. She’d tackle the least intimidating Marauder first.

            Peter Pettigrew was not very good at preparing potions, which Lily observed immediately. She watched him change their brew from a rusty red to a pecan brown. It was getting blacker by the moment until James finally noticed and tossed in some powdered moonstone under Remus’ direction. Sirius and Remus quickly made some jibe or another at Peter’s expense. Carefully, Lily jotted down “ _Bad at Potions_ ”.

            Even if he couldn’t think for himself, he could at least do what James told him. When Professor Slughorn began his predictable “surprise testing” of the students’ potions, Lily observed James whispering what could only be a complicated set of directions to Peter. Peter’s hands, short and quick, flashed across their table as he gathered the key ingredients that he had left out before and added them in James’ proper proportions. “ _Follows directions_ ” added Lily. She sighed and looked at her little notebook. This wasn’t what Minnie meant at all, was it?

            Benjy nudged her again with his elbow and Lily snapped the book closed.

            “What is it, Benjy?”

            “Looks like your mate Pettigrew’s in right trouble now,” he muttered. “You can see a bit of the reason why he’s got no friends but the other Gryffindor bunch.” Slughorn was giving disdainful looks to Peter as he eyed their potion, quizzing James on its contents. James was answering correctly as usual, and Peter shrunk down to a smaller size and slunk away from his abysmal elixir.

            Peter’s abysmal elixir. Lily had an idea. When the bell rang for class, she lingered, slowly replacing her ingredient bottles and stacking the boxes of plant cuttings neatly. Peter was slow too, stuffing scraps of paper into his bag with James’ help. Sirius rolled his eyes. Remus came over to talk to Lily.

            “You and Fenwick got the best marks,” he said easily. “Nice going.”

            “Mmm,” replied Lily off-handedly. “Yours would have been better if we hadn’t had that new pewter cauldron.”

            “Nah,” grinned Remus. “Sirius tossed Snape’s quill into our cauldron. There was green smoke everywhere for a bit, though I’ll bet you didn’t notice it. It wasn’t coming from James’ cauldron after all.”

            Lily blushed but there was not much use in denying it. Remus was a shrewd bugger, and he would be too clever for that deception anyway.

            “I was not watching James Potter today,” she answered, and it was basically the truth. She had been closely scrutinizing Peter Pettigrew. If her eyes had slipped from Peter’s panicky mouth to James’ bum more than once, call it a twitch of the eyes.

            Remus grinned again.

            “I only said that you didn’t see the putrid, green smoke bubbling out of our cauldron in ghastly amounts because it wasn’t coming from James’ direction. I didn’t say you were watching him because you fancy him.”

            At this point, Lily felt that the Minister of Magic ought to hand Remus an award for being a certifiable bastard.

            “I know what you said,” replied Lily archly. Remus chuckled in his light little way.

            Then she thought about it. If there really _had_ been a load of green smoke, and she hadn’t noticed it, she was not nearly perceptive enough to learn anything about the Marauders. Perhaps Peter Pettigrew had held up a great neon sign with his life’s secret on it while she was concentrating on James’ hair. It was a bit discouraging, really, that Lily Evans might one day die if she were to be trampled by a stampeding hippogriff herd that she had not noticed because of James’ bum. If it were a different detective story, she would be a pathetically hormonal Sherlock Holmes.

            James himself appeared at Remus’ side. He was wearing a very snug-fitting smile over an overall impassive face. Lily knew he was thinking about it. She gulped and returned to Remus’ conversation.

            “I did notice an awful smell,” tried Lily valiantly.

            Remus sniggered.

            “From their cauldron?” asked James quickly. “Yeah, it was gross. Padfoot nearly suffocated us with that damned green smoke—”

            “I did nothing wrong,” said Sirius automatically. He and Peter had come over, finally. Peter was warily gazing at Lily and he had his bag clutched to his chest. Lily tried a small smile. It was met with suspicion.

            “Come on,” said Sirius. He flicked his hair. “We’ll all be late for Charms now. Thank you for that, Wormtail, by the way.”

            Peter scowled but he said nothing back. Lily mentally added “ _Never answers back_ ” to her Peter list.

            James turned to Lily with an outstretched hand.

            “Would you like to walk with us?”

            Lily stared at his hand. Blunted, long fingers lined with the faintest white edge of fingernail. A pleasantly bumpy palm. A scar across his thumb (across his thumb?). What was she supposed to do with this perfect hand?

            She shook herself and attended to his eyes. The other Marauders had immaterialized somehow.

            “No, thanks. Professor Slughorn wanted to talk to me after class.”

            James shrugged.

            “Of course,” he said, but there was disappointing cool where one had not been before.

            The hand was withdrawing. Lily was sad to see it leave. Regretfully, she reached out and touched his palm with the light press of her fingertips. The hand stopped.

            “But I would walk with you some other time,” she offered, lifting her eyes boldly to his face.

            If she looked a second sooner, she might have seen James wrestling with something that was a lot like glee. As it was, her heart was beating with a lovely excitement so that Lily hardly noticed anything at all but the way that James squeezed her hand and drew back towards the door.

            “Sooner than you think, Evans,” he said. Then he was gone.

            Brimming with triumph, Lily slapped herself awake before she approached Professor Slughorn with all of the utterly responsible Head Girl innocence she could muster. She, after all, had wanted to see him after class rather than vice versa. At this point, Slughorn’s approval was integral to her scheme to unravel Peter Pettigrew. Lily was going to date James Potter one way or another.

            “Professor Slughorn?”

            The portly professor picked up whiskery round face in surprise and replaced his poison green quill into the gold-leaf inkwell on his desk.

            “Why, Lily,” he whuffled through his mustache. “Won’t you be late to your class?”

            “Well, yes, Professor, but I do need to ask you something.”

            Slughorn smiled and winked.

            “If you’re worrying over your potion, you should know by now—”

            “It’s not that,” interrupted Lily. She bit her lip in what she hoped was a girlish concern. “Professor, I noticed something today. Peter Pettigrew, the boy in my year…he doesn’t seem very good with Potions, does he, Sir?”

            “I should say not,” sniffed Slughorn indignantly. “One of the chief bunglers this term. No respect for the art at all, certainly not _nearly_ on par with yourself—”

            “Then, Sir,” said Lily sweetly. “I’d like to ask you a favor.”

            “Why, anything, of course.”

            “I’d like to tutor Peter Pettigrew in Potions, Sir.”

_There should be four or five chapters after this, I have decided. One for each Marauder and maybe a wrap up. So, how are all of you? I know you’re out there because I read statistics (insert a wagging finger for the non-reviwers). If you happen to stop by this page, tell me what you think. Thanks =)  
_ __

___Happy Thanksgiving!_   


 


	4. Peter Sympathy

"This flood (this flood) is slowly rising up, swallowing the ground / beneath my feet. Tell me how anybody thinks under this condition so / I'll swim (I'll swim) as the water rises up. The sun is sinking down / and now all I can see are the planets in a row / suggesting it's best that I slow down / This night's a perfect shade of / Dark blue (dark blue). / Have you ever been alone in a crowded room / When I'm here with you?”

Jack’s Mannequin “Dark Blue”

            Sitting alone in her dormitory, Lily brushed her hair in front of her mirror. Her flickering orange and gold hair curled when Lily pulling the comb calmly, soothed by the lamplight and the quiet. She was rehearsing just what she would say when she met Peter Pettigrew in a half hour, after he finished dinner. The thick oak door swung open, letting in a barrage of sounds and awkward light. Alice had come back.

            Lily stiffly replaced her comb and started from the vanity seat, but Alice was over in a moment. Her hands gripped the chair’s top rung and she hadn’t shut the door very well.

            “Lily,” purred Alice secretively, “listen. Now, I heard a little talk about you and Potter—”

            “Oh, why don’t you out and ask me?” snapped Lily vehemently, more angry than she had intended. Alice’s round face puckered in shock. “’I heard,’ ‘I heard,’ Alice. Is there anything else from you these days? Why can't you just say it?”

            Despairingly—despite her words—Lily watched her old best mate’s fair eyes taper into slender blue slashes.

            “I am just _repeating_ what I _encountered_ in the Common Room, if that suits your precious fit—”

            “Don’t talk to me like that because it’s saying the same thing!” said Lily hotly. “And I know you didn’t hear anything because I only told one girl and that’s Bloxam and she’s not a gab. Potter wouldn’t say a word either. All you had to do was ask, Alice! Did we or didn’t we, it’s simple! But instead you—”

            “ _Why are you so pissy_?” snarled Alice. “There’s nothing to get upset over—”

            “Oh, really?” demanded Lily. Her voice was rising. “Maybe I’m tired of your stupid games. Whatever happened to my Alice? Ever since you tossed over Frank Longbottom for Diggory last summer, you’ve been a…well, a right bitch. You think you can put on all of your makeup and prance around with all the girls and tease the boys. It doesn’t mean anything, Alice. This isn’t you. Frank cared about you and I bet he still would—”

            “Shut up,” hissed Alice through clenched teeth. “Just shut up.”

            “—but now, _now_!” Lily’s voice climbed to a furious crescendo. “You act just like…Petunia!”

            Pop. There was an audible falter in the trail of Common Room babble that swelled again after a few seconds. Lily and Alice stared at each other for a long eternity. Enmity bit into the air with a knife-sharp edge. The clocked ticked the quarter hour, making both girls jump. Lily looked away first, shamefully grabbing her Potions materials. Alice had met Petunia, so the insult stuck. Lily hadn’t meant to let her annoyance carry her words so far.

            “I’ve got to go tutor Pettigrew,” mumbled Lily. “Goodnight.” She scrabbled for the doorknob and wrenched it open. From only four feet away, Alice sniffled.

            Lily spent ten minutes crying in the girls’ loo. She didn’t know how she and Alice had gotten into such a terrible row. It was her fault, she knew. She felt miserable and expressly guilty. Wiping her eyes with toilet tissue, Lily blew her nose and checked her reflection. Peter would be waiting and everything had gone out of her head.

            There was an empty classroom on the second floor that Slughorn had suggested for their use. Lily made it just in time. Peter was sitting at one of the wide tables with a cauldron and his battered textbook. He hadn’t noticed her because he was facing the black windows with a heavy head.

            “We won’t need the cauldron,” said Lily abruptly. Her hiccupping cries had just barely subsided. “We’re not doing practicals yet.”

            Surprisingly speedy, Peter turned around in a flash. Lily gave a feeble wave and plopped all her supplies onto the table. She sat down hard and Peter eyed her copious baggage with misgiving.

            “Are we doing all of this work?”

            “Not tonight,” replied Lily evenly. “So, how are you, Peter?”

            “Fine,” he answered suspiciously. He had small, round eyes that were given to squinting. Something about Peter Pettigrew invoked suspicion, as though either he had it or you should. He was an easy person to blame. “How are you?”

            He didn’t sound like he cared very much. Lily smiled.

            “I could be better. Let’s work on Potions.” She steadied herself on a long, gasping breath. “Right then, so what was wrong with that elixir last Tuesday?”

            “Well,” Peter squirmed. His size was less than Lily expected. He was not as chubby as he had been; he appeared more furtive and compact without the extra weight. “That whole business with the laws of combining antidotes…”

            “The third law or the fifth?”

            “I didn’t know there was more than one.”

            “Open up to page two-hundred-and-twenty.”

            Slowly, grudgingly, they worked at the properties of the Blood-Replenishing Potion and then backtracked all the way to the Wit-Sharpening Potion. It was grueling. Peter hardly grasped anything that Lily didn’t directly say and she was too good at Potions to be able to explain exactly _why_ she did everything she did. More than once, Lily nearly lost her temper before she forced herself to be calm. Peter, however, never got angry. Sullen confusion substituted for a temper.

            That was interesting. She didn’t think that he would stand up to her even if she had threatened him with a boiling pot of hippogriff entrails. Lily gave Peter a series of formulas to solve so that she’d be afforded time to watch him. Positively, it put the memory of Alice at bay for awhile.

            He hunched constantly over his parchment, squinting and gnawing his lip. His fingers were still pudgy, but he was skinnier overall than Lily had ever remembered. Maybe seventh year was agreeing with him. Peter’s hair was fair and mixed brown, winding up nondescript in color. It plastered to his forehead as he sweat over difficult questions.

            “Peter,” suggested Lily gently. “Do you ever ask Ja—your friends for help? Like Black or James or Remus?”

            For being so stupid with Potions, thought Lily, Peter was cunning with words. His flickering eyebrows proved that she wasn’t being nonchalant, but he answered dutifully.

            “Sometimes they give me the answers and all…I get good marks on homework. In class it’s just hard for me, you know.”

            “Do they ever try to _teach_ you anything?”

            “Sort of…James tries but he’s not very good at it anyway—not as good as he is at other things, I mean. He’d fail if he kept telling me everything.”

            That was a stinging comment from someone who ought to be your friend.

            “Did he say that?” asked Lily angrily.

            “No, Sirius did,” replied Peter. “He’s right, too. And James needs to keep up because of being Head Boy and Quidditch Captain and all.” He tried another recollection. “We all study together before tests because Remus is best at it.”

            “Sirius doesn’t have the patience,” muttered Lily scornfully. The way Peter was treated seemed pretty lousy sometimes.

            Peter either pretended he hadn’t heard or hadn’t, because he mopped his straw-straight hair off his face and pulled over his notebook.

            “Lily, is this diagram right?”

            Pleased that Peter was taking a proactive part, Lily stashed away her thoughts and pulled over her own notebook cheerfully.

            “Well, yes, you’ve got it mostly right. You’ll want to include wolfsbane spoors in that section, though.”

            Their two hours together wore on. The knowledge needed to be pounded into Peter because he never picked up concepts without help; but once it was there, it stuck. Lily quizzed him with ten minutes remaining and he answered every definition correctly. She smiled broadly and Peter gave a small grin for the first time.

            “I’m proud of you, Peter. You’ve got everything for the next test.”

            “Professor Slughorn must think I’m hopeless.”

            “I don’t know what he thinks and I don’t care,” said Lily tartly. “You are going to do brilliantly on this test and that’ll give him a good slap in the face.”

            “I hope so.”

            Peter fiddled with his raggedly-edged notes while Lily mashed her papers back into her bag. Organization, she reminded herself. She’d do it tomorrow.

            “Erm…so. Are you better at Potions than Snape or no?”

            Lily laughed at his tactless, bald-faced question. Peter blushed and grinned again. He’d have to tell James all about this later.

            “I dunno. He cares more about it, but…well, I don’t want to brag.”

            “’Course you do,” said Peter cheerfully. He was warming to the subject. “If you’d good at something, you might as well say it.”

            “That might be Potter’s method, but it’s not mine,” said Lily amusedly. “I can't brag because as soon as I did, Snape would start beating me at everything. That’s my luck, Peter. We can’t all be flawless.”

            “Is that why you won’t go out with him?” asked Peter eagerly.

            “Who, Snape?”

            “ _No_!”

            They both laughed.

            “Is this tutoring or what?”

            Lily turned to the doorway. James stood there and he seemed pleased to see her. Peter beamed and picked up his cauldron immediately. Still heady with laughter, Lily stood up slowly and followed him to James.

            “So this is your tutor, Wormtail?” asked James with feigned languidness.

            “Uh huh.” Peter didn’t seem sure as to how he should act about it, but Lily saved him the trouble.

            “What are you doing here, James?”

            “I came to get Wormtail. Rescue him from whatever terror Slughorn had pulled from the depths to teach him Potions.”

            “Mmm, well, you’re funny, but a little late. Peter and I have finished and he’s doing very well. He’ll be able to teach you next time.”

            Peter blanched like a trapped grindylow. Lily laughed happily.

            “Goodnight, Peter. Next Tuesday again?”

            “Er, yes. Slughorn said until Christmas at least—”

            “Don’t worry about that,” soothed Lily. She really didn’t mind teaching as much as she would have thought. Peter wasn’t the bad sort, just very dependent. “We’ll do whatever we need to do and _then_ let him have his say about your grades—”

            “Peter, Slughorn is a git,” began James. Peter nodded loyally but Lily cut in.

            “He’s not that much of a git, and I _was_ saying something James—”

            “Please. He’s a self-absorbed—”

            “Hah! You’re just as bad—”

            It was going to be another first-class, top-notch argument. Lily was defensive, playing offensive, and enjoying herself. James had a stand-by line and an unorthodox way of making himself right. They usually enjoyed fighting.

            “I’m—” They turned from each other when Peter interrupted. He shuffled out a smile guiltily. “I’m going back now. I’ve…got some other stuff…Transfiguration essay—”

            “Moony has our official copy,” added James helpfully. “He’s in the Common Room I think. We did it before and we changed it all for ourselves already.”

            “I’ll go find him, then. Thanks, Prongs,” said Peter with relief. He considered his next move. “Bye, Lily. Thanks.”

            Peter hefted his unwieldy cauldron and disappeared down the corridor. It was a scuttling motion that bent away your attention.

            Suddenly, Lily and James were left alone and slightly uncomfortable. James peered after him, stalling for time.

            “He’s going the long way…blind as a bat sometimes…”

            “Let him,” shrugged Lily. “Maybe he wants time to think.”

            James opened his mouth but thought better of it. They looked at each other. Lily’s heart snuck towards her throat and her cheeks were warm.

            “Let me carry that,” commanded James shortly. Lily blinked and gave over her bag unthinkingly. It was heavy. James made it look light as he slung it on his shoulder.

            “Er, thanks.”

            “I’m walking you back to the tower.”

            “All right.”

            A moment later and they both remembered to start walking. Lily spoke first.

            “So…is Peter always like that?”

            “Hmm? Like what?” asked James distractedly.

            “Quiet, I guess. Willing to please.”

            James shrugged.

            “I don’t notice it. Maybe. Why didn’t you tell me you were his tutor?”

            That caught her by surprise.

            “I don’t know. I didn’t think of it,” said Lily. She remembered something she had been meaning to ask James.  “You, Sirius, and Remus are much smarter than Peter. He feels it, too. Why do you run him down all the time?”

            “I don’t,” said James indignantly. “At least, I don’t try to. Sirius does it, though. He does what he wants.”

            “You could stop him if you really wanted,” accused Lily. James fixed her with a look that made her gulp.

            “If I wanted to fight all the time,” he answered derisively. In a more normal tone, he continued, “I’m both their mates. Like I said, Sirius mostly does what he wants. Like you.”

            “Like me?” said Lily, surprised. “I don’t do whatever I want.”

            “You did in the Heads Room,” answered James, being quite deliberately neutral.

            That was that kiss again. Lily flushed entirely.

            “You started it. You tried to kiss me at the Halloween Party.”

            “I _did_ kiss you,” restated James. “But McGonagall came to break up the party and I was more than a little ratted, as you may remember.”

            “I do.” Lily thought for a minute. “James, would you have kissed me if you weren’t drunk?”

            James paused, stopped walking, and then started again.

            “Yes,” he said decisively. “I would have. I just would have been better at it.”

            “You were fine last Thursday,” muttered Lily. It left her lips like a blind bullet shot. Horrorstruck, she hazarded a glance at James, who was grinning rakishly.

            “I said that, didn’t I?”

            “Yes, you did. I’m happy about it.”

            “Shut up,” said Lily mulishly. They climbed a set of stairs and faced down the hallway to the Fat Lady’s Portrait. James caught her hand and turned to look at her.

            “Would you mind if I asked you to go out with me?” he asked softly. Lily gulped again.

            “Ah…no.”

            “Then will you go out with me?” he asked, drawing both of her hands together in his. Captured totally, she gazed up at his face.

            “Yes.”

            James smiled. His thumbs traced muted circles on her wrists. He placed his forehead against hers and kissed her, stealing her breath away. For good measure, he planted a kiss on her nose and released her hands.

            “I will be kissing you goodnight from now until Hogsmeade.”

            “Mmkay.” She couldn’t quite think of a better response. James resettled her bag on his shoulder and took her hand again.

            “Good. Now that that’s settled, let’s make nice in front of the Fat Lady and talk about something else. For instance, what wonderful things did Peter say about me?”

            “We’re not dating yet, James,” reminded Lily superiorly. “I didn’t waste his time or mine with stupid questions about _you_. We looked over Potions.”

            “How boring.”

            “He said you weren’t very good at them.”

            “He _what_? I’ll fix his broomstick for him, ungrateful bastard. I’ll beat him with a troll’s club. I’ll put his embarrassing knickers on the breakfast table. I’ll get Sirius to help. I’ll…”

            James kept her giggling the rest of the way to bed, making good-natured threats. Lily couldn’t help but grin when she came into the girls’ room. The others were still awake, doing work and such. They said hello, but Alice shut the drawings to her bed. Pained, Lily dropped her bag next to her own bed and began to prepare for tomorrow. A soft weight landed on her mattress.

            “How did it go?”

            “Minnie, how do you know what I was doing?”

            “I know you were tutoring Peter Pettigrew because Slughorn called him out of Astronomy to tell him,” answered Minnie. “And he came back and told Remus he had a tutor for Tuesdays but he didn’t know who. And you left after dinner.”

            “That’s fair, then.” Lily was getting used to Minnie’s uncanny sensibilities.

            “Now, how did it go with James?”

            “How do you know about that?” asked Lily, amazed. Minnie made her small smile and gestured Lily to be quiet so the other girls wouldn’t hear.

            “He left the other lads to go fetch Pettigrew. Pettigrew came back ten minutes ago.”

            “He didn’t take the long way, then,” murmured Lily as she fluffed her pillow.

            “What?”

            “Nothing,” answered Lily. Then, “Minnie…are you…what?”

            “Smirking? I might be,” answered Minnie with sly evasiveness. It was very unlike her. Moving suddenly, like an impish pixie, she closed the side of Lily’s bed and scrambled over behind her.

            “C’mon. Tell me about it. I’ll braid your hair for you.”

            “I don’t usually braid my hair before I—”

            “You will tonight. I’m curious, that’s why. Start talking.”

            Lily sighed, but she couldn’t fight against Minnie’s tiny fingers pulling apart the strands of her hair. It would even be a relief, truth be told, to share things with another girl again.

            “So I had a huge row before I left and it set me all out of sorts…”

            It was late when Lily finally slipped under her coverlet. Minnie, she decided, couldn’t braid. She didn’t even know why she had tried. Everything was a mess.

            No, thought Lily, that was a mistake. Lily did know why; and she knew why she had let Minnie keep going even after the first mix-up. Minnie wanted to talk and in a way, Lily wanted to talk as well. Lily thought over Minnie’s usual friends and couldn’t think of any. A Hufflepuff girl, maybe…she couldn’t recall. Minnie wasn’t friendly with a great many Gryffindors, but she had earned Lily’s trust. Sympathetic chatter had, somewhere, become the real sproutlings of a friendship—

            Sympathy. _Sympathy_. Peter Pettigrew. James. That’s what Peter represented, sympathy. James’, in fact. And somewhere in that mix was true companionship.

            Lily touched her nose and kissed her fingertips before she slept.

_That’s the Peter chapter. I’d be interested as to your thoughts on my take on Wormtail because I try not to make him that despised, faceless Marauder that I usually see. Merry Christmas, too, since I probably won’t update before then._


	5. Remus Determined

   
"Passion dripping from the coyote's eyes / He can taste his blood / An' blood never lies / Pale face die / True men don't kill coyotes /  
True men don't...”�

The Red Hot Chili Peppers “True Men Don’t Kill Coyotes”�  
            Her cloaks and scarves and numerous knitted articles flapped like tumbling wings while they knocked Lily in the cold wind. It was snowing. It was the last day of classes before the holidays. Struggling alongside Benjy Fenwick, Lily trundled across the snowy grounds from the greenhouses to the castle. The weather was disgusting, but beautiful.

            “Lily!”� called a waving figure whose shape bled off from Hagrid’s hut. 

            Benjy and Lily were on their way in from Herbology. Benjy–who had excellent vision–squinted through the wind with watery eyes.

            “It’s Lupin. D’you want to me go?”�

            “No,”� shrugged Lily. She and Benjy were better friends than she and Remus were; Remus could say whatever he wanted in front of both of them–barring his monthly condition.

            “Well, I’m going anyway. Tell Lupin ‘Happy Christmas,’”� instructed Benjy, swiping his straggling dark hair out of his eye. “I’ve got to see Flitwick about his barmy system of counting. Seems I got a seventy-five percent when I ought to have managed a ninety at least. Now how did _that_ happen?”�

            “I didn’t let you cheat off me on something you didn’t study?”� suggested Lily. For being extremely bright, Benjy was a bit of a moron about schoolwork. “You never read the textbook? You hate Charms? You underachieve? You were up shagging Marlene half the night?”�

            Benjy wrinkled his nose.

            “Marlene’s in love with that Gryffindor, McKinnon and besides, Marlene and I have never done much of anything together. You, Lily, ought to be a little bit more respectful with your jokes,”� replied Benjy in a preachy voice.

            “All right. You were up with Aggie Timms, then.”�

            “That’s personal,”� he winked. Benjy usually bluffed but Lily didn’t care to call him on it because after all it might be true; he had always had an innate popularity with girls. She wondered if he would be seeing Dorcas Meadows–the girl genius–over the holidays like he had planned. “Bye, Lily.”�

            “Owl me if I don’t see you!”� she called after him. Benjy gave a backwards wave and slid a bit in the snow. She laughed so that he could hear it.

            Lily’s teeth chattered tunefully as Remus finally reached her. He seemed fairly comfortable in his single-layer cloak.

            “You don’t even have a hood on,”� she accused.

            “Hello, then,”� laughed Remus. Lily’s face pinched when she sourly glared at him. “I didn’t realize that my being warm hurt you so badly. I’ll try harder to be cold in the future.”�

            They began walking back to the inviting castle with minimal small talk. As both knew, the full moon rose tomorrow night.

            “Did you get Alice Prewett a Christmas present?”� he asked unexpectedly. Bits of snowflake touched his sandy brown hair where it lay in a casual line against his forehead.

            Lily stiffened and answered, “Yes, but I don’t think I’ll give it to her. We’re not speaking now.”�

            “I know,”� said Remus. “She told me.”�

            They were inside and Lily paused as she undid her cloak to let in the light and warmth of the crackling fire in the Hall. Remus noticed how her hair caught _every_ light, especially the alternating flashes of the fire. It was something James had once let slip way back in fifth year. They had taken the mickey out of him for days.

            “She did what?”� asked Lily flatly.

            “Alice Prewett told me you two weren’t friends.”�

            “It’s her fault,”� replied Lily, not without a drop of anger, a hint of aloofness, and an essence of restraint. She twirled and marched up the stairs to follow the stony maze that would lead her to the Fat Lady and the Portrait Hole.

            Remus took the steps two at a time and caught up with her easily.

            “Yeah, yeah it might be. I just thought that since you and James have been together since–”�

            “Yes, Remus,”� snapped Lily. “We’ve been together since around the time Alice and I _told_ everyone we weren’t best mates anymore. You weren’t there, however, before that. We haven’t been best friends for a good long while. Don’t bring James into it.”�

            “Why would I blame him?”� asked Remus laconically. Whenever he said something that somehow managed to be infuriating–like that–his mouth kicked up into a faint dimple. Lily savagely hoped it would work against him in the future.

            “Just…don’t, please?”� asked Lily.

            “You should give her the gift. I think she wants to be friends with you again. She misses you.”�

            “Sounds like _you’re_ her new best bloke,”� replied Lily deliberately. “Why would she need me?”�

            Remus grinned with considerable patience.

            “That was some James-level stubborn snottiness. Did he teach you that precise thing where he pretends he doesn’t care?”�

            Lily didn’t reply as they trudged further up the stairs. She allowed him to fall into step with her when he continued.

            “Just don’t let Alice go, right?”� he said. Lily squirmed because Remus was obviously using that quiet, mediation voice that was gravelly and sugary. It was a teacher-voice that you would here when you did poorly on something you were good at. Remus always played the counselor because he basically had a pretty good grasp on how people worked. Lily sometimes wondered if that was why he was quiet most of the time.

            “Why does it matter so much?”�

            “I know what it’s like to have fights with your mates,”� said Remus. “Let me tell you something before we get into the Common Room.”� They paused near a statue of a witch who held a parrot with its wings in a ghastly position. Remus lowered his face towards Lily in confidence.

            “That row that we were all in? Fifth year? Remember that, Lily?”�

            “Yeah,”� she answered with a faint kick of a smile. “You had started with those nicknames just a bit before, and everyone thought they were dumb and you wouldn’t let anyone else use them, but then…then…”�

            “Yes,”� said Remus sternly. “James and Sirius fought it out.”� He was going to make her remember that difficult time when Sirius and James temporarily and inexplicably had stopped their friendship. People throughout Hogwarts remembered it because they had carved out school-wide personalities for themselves even by fifth year. They had sat alone at meals like split halves of the same fruit, the worst of it being the thought that there was obvious _betrayal_ there. The Marauders had lasted apart for a fortnight or more, although Remus and Peter seemed to have been on James’ side in whatever argument had occurred.

            “Mmm, I recall,”� was all she said. “That was around the time my mum got sick.”�

            “You’re right,”� said Remus, softening because everyone knew that Lily’s mother had died months later. “About that time. I’m going to tell you a little bit of what happened there and then I’m going to tell you just how much those three, stupid, proud mates of mine mean to me. And it’s not the least bit easy so don’t interrupt, please. We’re going to sit down here.”�

            He guided her to a classroom next to the statue of the witch. She sat down awkwardly on a desk because this sounded like something she wasn’t supposed to hear.

            Remus took a deep breath and related to Lily the incident with Snape and Sirius and James and Remus: Sirius luring Snape to the werewolf’s lair and James’ last-minute dash effort to hold back Remus. Her eyes were electric windows, welling with tears, by the time Remus had finished.

            “Do you know what’s worse?”� he asked. It was a savage question. “Sirius did it because he thought it’d be a laugh and because he thought he and James were growing apart and because Sirius hates Snape for being a Slytherin. Maybe they weren’t bloody smart reasons, yes, but they were strong ones.

            “I blamed him at first so much that Peter and James and I stopped talking to him, but _we_ also stopped talking because it wasn’t the same. We couldn’t even talk to each other. Peter will always take James’ side, you know, but I…

            “I saw terrible things down in that hole, Lily. Sirius had tried to use me as a weapon against Snape and I saw myself try to kill James. We almost didn’t want to take him to Madam Pomfrey because the gash was so bad, but in the end we had to. Snape was barely hurt, but he blabbed everything to Dumbledore anyway. James is guilty about being Head Boy now since he figures Dumbledore only picked him after he saved Snape. _I_ certainly don’t deserve to be Head Boy; I shouldn’t even be a Prefect because I lead my best mates into so much danger. Sirius ought to be expelled, really, but he doesn’t have anywhere to go. And just so you know, James only kept picking on Snape so terribly because he didn’t want to lose Sirius and he wasn’t sure what else to do.”�

            There was no room, really, for Lily to say anything. She couldn’t have come up with anything right anyway. A thousand different pictures of James and his friends swam through her mind, each one more colorful than the last and each one tinged with red. Remus, poor Remus. He was so responsible that a shock like this probably almost killed him. He didn’t seem to be able to stop talking about it, feverishly continuing.

            “So we’re all scarred, Lily, we’re all very scarred. There are things we can't pick up and touch because they still bleed. James actually carries more than one scar from that. One’s on his head where he always ruffles his hair. I can't imagine what they said while I was a beast.”�

            “Remus–”�

            “I told you not to interrupt,”� he said smoothly, checking his rambling pace as if he had really been calm all along. Remus’ large brown eyes sought Lily’s, trying to force her to understand. “I am about to get to the important part.”�

            “I always knew, though,”� babbled Lily. “I can tell how you four feel. It’s just the way you’re so close, like you know everything–”�

            “This is all very embarrassing to say, Lily,”� Remus reminded her. His breathing shook his agile frame more than it ought to have. “I’m just going to finish now, right?”�

            “Right,”� she agreed. “Sorry.”�

            “Anyway…”� Remus sent her a comically cagey glare. She managed a weak laugh.

            “I brought the Marauders back together that time,”� he said. “None of us really had any right to approach one another–I probably least of all–but I sat us all down and let me tell you that I cried. I missed them that much, and they’re not even real best friends with me. _Think about that_. James and Sirius are each other’s best mates, but who’ve I got? Peter? He worships James and he’s not really anything like me. See, I know I’m third here, I’m second best to either one…but…their friendship is so important that it doesn’t matter. I’ve never felt anything like the feeling of trust that we have. It’s worth fighting for. James and Sirius would kill for me even if they’d pick each other first.”�

            With a pause, Remus shrugged against the chalkboard as he watched Lily sob. He offered her his handkerchief and she took it readily to mop up her face. Those boys were so, so stupid, she thought, as she cried for them. They were also more beautiful than anything she’d ever imagined, magic included. And it might kill her but _she wanted that_. She wanted that precious thing, that fire that they had. That James offered. It would kill all of them eventually, but damn…how perfect and strong.

            Remus might have known why she was crying or he might not have, but he only slightly better with weepy girls than others boys would be. That meant he went a whole minute rather than the usual twelve seconds without looking uncomfortable. Luckily, Lily wasn’t usually a heavy crier.

            Lily sat for quite awhile dabbing at her face before she could look at Remus again. He smiled and that kindly friend she knew reappeared.

            “Is this…is this some lesson about Alice and me?”�

            Remus winced.

            “Dammit. It sounds like that, doesn’t it? I didn’t mean it to. I wanted to tell you about this before the holidays and I wanted to tell you about Alice, but not like some sodding lesson plan. I’ve done it all wrong I suppose–”�

            Lily laughed and laughed and started crying again into her laughing and ended up in another hiccupy mess.

            “Oh!”� she cried out with Remus’ damp handkerchief waving from her hand. “Oh, Remus…you…you are an idiot. A real idiot, a real---I dunno. I’m sorry for being all sensitive. It won’t happen again, I swear, but–er. Whatever. Alice and I don’t have a tenth of what you lot have but I’ve give her that bloody present anyway. How can I not? It’s just a bunch of stupid bracelets. And Alice and I aren’t even like you at all.”�

            “You already have more than me because you are each other’s best mate.”�

            “It barely looks that way now,”� said Lily sadly. Remus squeezed her chin lightly and helped her off the desk and down the corridor. Everyone was at dinner by this time. They were forced to carry all their books and cloaks to the Great Hall.

            “You speak very well for a boy,”� remarked Lily abruptly. Remus laughed again. He was quick to laugh that soft laugh of his, but he would do it less and less as he grew up more.

            “Compared to emotional bunglers like James and Sirius, yes. Thank you.”�

            “You’re right,”� admitted Lily wistfully. “James isn’t much of speaker. He sort of _acts_ more than _says_.”�

            “You would know.”�

            “I didn’t mean that.”�

            “Still…”�

            “Sod off.”�

            Proving her point, James kissed her as soon as she and Remus sat down at dinner.

            “Where were you?”� he asked casually. He evidently trusted Remus, though, because he directed the question only to Lily. His eyes hadn’t even flashed with jealousy–as they did fairly often–when he saw Remus and Lily come in together.

            “Delayed in Herbology,”� replied Lily easily. “Remus waited for me after he talked with Hagrid.”�

            “Oh, right,”� agreed James. “Thanks, mate. Here, Lily, I saved you some potatoes from–”�

            “Actually, Prongs, you nicked them from the first years,”� drawled Sirius. “You ate the last potatoes.”�

            “Actually, Padfoot, you can go–”�

            Dinner was no greater affair than usual. Lily was a little disappointed that a little bit of their nobility didn’t manage to leak out for her to see, but she could wait. She had all the time in the world with James. Before turning in for the night, Lily grabbed Remus’ arm.

            “Remus, I’ve got a question for you.”�

            “Yeah?”� he asked.

            “How did James do it?”� whispered Lily covertly. “How did he fight you? How do you all do it every full moon?”�

            Remus wrestled with it, but he didn’t give in. There was no way he was giving up all of the Marauders by telling Lily they were Animagi.

            “Lily I can't tell you–no, don’t look like that–come on, now.”�

            “Right then,”� sighed Lily. “Sorry.”�

            “It’s just something James needs to say. He’ll tell you,”� said Remus confidently. If James ever told a soul, he would tell Lily. Remus was sure.

            “Right. Goodnight, Remus.”�

            That night, Lily retrieved the small, sturdy box cleverly wrapped with a rippling bow from under her bed. She hesitated. She had spent a lot of time wrapping it. Cradling the gift in her two hands, she went over to the bed where Alice lay behind drawn curtains. Lily cautiously parted the curtains and held her breath. She hoped she would be as brave and as determined as Remus had been.

            “Happy Christmas, Alice.”�

            Both of them were bawling in each other’s arms about fifteen minutes later.

 

_Remus’ chapter right here. Happy New Year at this point for everyone who is reading this. Note also, please, that this is not as closely edited as the other chapters were so I hope there are not many mistakes. And although I have taken a long time to update, I feel it is appropriate to pull out the wagging finger of reviews again. Thanks =)_  
 


	6. Sirius Himself

“Pleased to meet you / Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah / But what’s confusing you / Is just the nature of my game / Just as every cop is a criminal / And all the sinners, saints / As heads is tails / Just call me Lucifer / ‘cause I’m in need of some restraint / So if you meet me / Have some courtesy / Have some sympathy, and some taste / Use all your well-learned politesse / Or I’ll lay your soul to waste.” The Rolling Stones “Sympathy for the Devil”

            “Some people are saying that you’re just using me, you know.”

            They sat on the sofa facing the fireplace in James’ house, more lying than sitting, more together than apart. They were talking about anything that came to mind. Lily knew she had to Apparate home by ten o’clock.

            James nudged her with his arm. Their hands were intertwined and he was playing with her fingers.

            “Am I?”

            “Yes,” replied Lily succinctly, not without her own band of amusement. “That’s what they say.”

            “Who’s ‘they’?”

            “The girls,” answered Lily vaguely.

            “The girls, huh?” said James comfortably, shouldering Lily more snugly into the cavity of his chest. The Christmas decorations were still up around his living room, replete with gentling tinkling bells nestled in the thick boughs of holly that lined the crown molding. Hogwarts would be back in session in only a few days, and Lily had finally convinced her parents to let her visit James. They had gone out twice before Christmas, but under the pretext of a group gathering in Diagon Alley. There had, technically, been a group. Sirius, Remus, and Peter had left after saying cheers.

            “What else do they say about me?”

            “Mmm, well, lousy stuff. Daisy Hookum and Myra Flume say that I’ve been…relaxing my standards for you, although sometimes I’m the one playing with _your_ heart. Marlene Fudge isn’t exactly pleased with you either—”

            “Pssht, she hates Sirius because he picks on her brother all the time,” waved James lazily. His fingertips tapped a secret message on the inside of her wrist. 

            One of the things that Lily found remarkable about James was the way that he cared what about ten people in the world thought of him. Lily glanced back up at him and saw a familiar dark expression in his eyes.

            “I’ve been too easy for you,” she explained smilingly. “I’m becoming a slag.”

            James paused seconds away from her mouth. He pursed his lips and changed tactics instead. He seemed to be considering something.

            “So your friends hate me,” he said, kissing her neck and blowing softly on the spot. “Meanwhile, my friends love you.” At the touch of his lips to her neck, there was some indecent shifting on Lily’s part but James gently, forcibly kept her where he wanted her. She grumbled slightly, although of course there was nothing to complain about. He was just so _smart_ with her, like he knew everything that she wanted and he was one—if not three—steps ahead. And he usually managed to get what he wanted in return. James said it was mostly because he had been planning their relationship since he was fourteen. This time, he appeared to want to fritter away most of the evening here on her neck.

            “Sirius hates me,” pointed out Lily irritably. “And those girls are not my friends.” She wanted to make out with James and she was annoyed that he was stalling; she was sorry that she had brought up this whole “sharing and talking” business. It was almost eight after all and the Potter parents would be home by quarter-after nine.

            With a curious expression, James turned his head to face Lily and tilted Lily’s face towards him. His black brows slithered archly.

            “He doesn’t hate you.”

            Lily prodded his stomach.

            “And…?”

            “And he doesn’t. What else do you want?”

            “Well, he certainly doesn’t like me.”

            A pause while James stroked her arm.

            “That’s not really it,” answered James thoughtfully. “You are both…very different. Not alike, you know.”

            “I’m glad you clarified,” said Lily dryly. “But, James, we’re not that unlike. We can’t be since you like us both.”

            “Yes, I’d thought of that,” admitted James. He shrugged. “But I can’t figure it out. Anyway, don’t let it worry you.”

            “I’ll worry about what I want,” asserted Lily, out of mild spite. “Sirius included.”

            “Why included?” asked James with the first strain of distress. “You tutor Peter, work with Remus, and go with me. Three out of four is good odds, Lily.”

            “But I am a perfectionist.”

            “You’ll be what you’ll be, I guess,” said James, suddenly restive. He slipped his hands around Lily and physically displaced her onto the sofa. “I’m starved. Want some popcorn?”

            “Sure,” agreed Lily. She thought of reclining on the warm couch a little longer and soaking in the essence of Potter that lay here. Thinking better of it, Lily trailed James into the kitchen. He was a leader; he was hard to resist.

            James was putting his wand to a kettle filled with popcorn kernels. They burst into puffy bloom instantly, but there was quite a large amount.

            Lily put her arms around him and he slipped his hand to her waist and the slit of bare skin there where her Muggle top had ridden up slightly over her Muggle jeans. James smiled down at her.

            “I like this, what we have.”

            “Me too, but don’t tell those Gryffindor girls. They’ll never let me into their nunnery.”

            He laughed richly and tugged her a little closer. His whole hand had slid onto the warm skin of her hip under her sweater.

            “I won’t tell the Ravenclaw girls either,” promised James. “Or the Hufflepuffs. But I’m sending pictures to the Slytherins detailing why I love Muggleborns.”

            “The Ravenclaw girls are actually very nice,” conceded Lily. “But then, you’ve dated a few of them.”

            “I have,” he acknowledged, showing minimal remorse. “I think Bloxam has been telling them nice things about you, though.”

            Lily’s expression soured sadly.

            “Did you know,” she said, “that Minnie Bloxam’s two sisters died when she was in first year? Killed at home, no warning.”

            “No, I didn’t know,” replied James, carefully measuring out the popcorn to see the remaining kernels and adding the appropriate salt and butter.

            “Well, they were,” answered Lily forlornly. She remember how she had found out, through a Ravenclaw named Elladora Guffy who had heard that Lily was Minnie’s new friend. What Elladora hadn’t known, however, was that the implications of the manner of death were so severe for Minnie. “Killed by Fenrir Greyback.”

            James stopped stirring the popcorn kernels.

            “Bloxam? Minnie Bloxam?” He blinked. “The one who dated Moony?”

            “Yes,” whispered Lily, “the one who dated Moony. I think Minnie found out about Remus.”

            James pushed his hand through his hair anxiously.

            “Really, eh? I wonder if he told her. That’s not like Moony…”

            “Just because he told all of you doesn’t mean that he can't tell whoever else he wants,” said Lily severely. “It’s his secret, not yours.”

            “Yeah, I know,” muttered James. “It’d be easier if it were ours.” He took up the popcorn bowl with both hands. “Let’s watch that fire again.”

            Rolling her eyes, Lily sighed and grabbed two paper napkins.

            “I’ll find out someday, James,” called out Lily as she entered. “That little secret you four have.”

            James was sitting on the couch without a care in the world, crunching on his handful of popcorn; he regarded Lily’s salvo mildly. The details of the Marauders’ monthly outings had become something of a joke in their relationship, but Lily felt that soon she would have to make a significant request for answers. It was a rare month that James didn’t come back hurt.

            “How about you ask Sirius about it?” suggested James. “If he tells you, then—”

            “Then what, James?” asked Lily tiredly.

            “Then, you’d know, wouldn’t you?”

            “That’s dumb.”

            She stood over him with her arms crossed over her chest. As James looked innocently up at her through his thick, stubby eyelashes, his heart itched in his chest and something else inside of him thumped against his skin. This was his girlfriend, _his_ Lily, his _own_ sexy, caring, funny woman. James knew how to get Lily going almost every time, and he figured that he probably loved her by this point in their romance. Her relationship with Sirius (nonexistent), however, did pose a problem. However, James Potter was never one to let irresolvable problems ruin the present.

            “I enjoy making you break your principles, Lily, did I tell you that?”

            With a considerable rush of blood, James marked the minute changes as she adjusted her pose. The slant of her hips, that curtain of red hair. Her plump lips glossy and pink.

            “You haven’t broken that many,” dared Lily flirtatiously, sinking onto the sofa beside him and moving the bowl out of her way.

            “Can I get to the rest tonight?”

            There was the flicker where Lily met his eyes and gauged how serious he was. This usually happened and Lily would do whatever she wanted afterwards, but James never pushed the issue. He would make it worth her while when she was ready.

            “Not on your life,” Lily responded, lowering her face to his and enveloping James in that perfect girly scent that came from her breath and her hair and her skin and the spritz of her truly excellent perfume. Before they kissed, James brushed his hands through her hair and onto her hips like always. They loved each other’s hair. The next day, Lily sent an owl to Sirius Black’s flat with a challenge.

…

_“But he always got caught / Man that kid made fucking up look cool / Aren’t we all so cool now, no.”_ Something Corporate “Cavanaugh Park”

_“’Cause I swear I'd burn this city down to show you the light / There's a drug in the thermostat to warm the room up / And there's another around to help us bend your trust / I've got a sunset in my veins / And I need to take a pill to make this town feel okay / The best part of ‘Believe’ is the ‘Lie’, / I hope you sing along and you steal a line / I need to keep you like this in my mind / So give in or just give up.”_ Fall Out Boy “Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year”

…

            “Spend the day with you, Lily?” Sirius asked caustically. “Was this for a laugh? Or do you plan to trade me in so Prongs can have a better best mate?”

            “Like I could,” she retorted. They walked down a crowded Diagon Alley, skirting people they knew and fat ladies leaving Madam Malkin’s. The sun sat hard and cold in a bright, thick gray sky.

            Sirius glanced back, slightly registering surprise. Oftentimes it was he who would let unkind comments dart through their cordial conversation. Lily wasn’t playing nice today.

            He didn’t ask what that was supposed to mean, if it referred to him and James or not. He wouldn’t and he didn’t have to. They had been walking together for fifteen minutes and this was the first that they had spoken. Soon, they’d be eating lunch at some café as if they were old buddies, but they hadn’t even exchanged a greeting upon arrival.

            Lily was surprised that Sirius had come at all. Her note had said to meet at Gringotts by twelve so they could spend time together, and don’t bother to reply if you don’t want to. Sirius had been there, hardly bundled up in a plain black coat and gloves, ignoring the cold as he leaned casually against the marble façade.

            “It’s ahead on the left,” she reminded him.

            “I know that,” Sirius said shortly, flicking his head to move his hair away from his eyes.

            It would be easier just to admit, straight off, that Sirius was gorgeous. He was the handsomest boy that Lily had ever seen in the flesh. Remembering her little Marauders notebook that she had binned earlier that week, Lily knew that Sirius’ body would always have been the important invisible characteristic written all across the top of his page. It was essential and it was a part of him; it also wouldn’t get in her way. Lily also recognized that his hair and his striking face and his lean, powerful figure were all layers that made him more remote. It basically worked to block out most of the school, Lily knew, because barely anyone could say that he or she really knew Sirius.

            _Well, Sirius Black_ , she thought vengefully, _fuck_ _that_.

            The same Gryffindor girls who thought Lily was a bad girlfriend and changed their opinions on James every three minutes—the same girls Alice had temporarily taken advice from—found Sirius to be the epitome of hot, masculine loving at Hogwarts. They disregarded just how much he seemed to hate all of them or how he never really responded to their hopeful advances. His girlfriends had been mostly summer flings outside of school. They enjoyed talking about him and about such aristocratic topics as how good he probably was at sex.

            Lily wouldn’t ever enjoy him as a sex thing. She’d have to find something else to enjoy about him, of which the other girls—going on eight years of his acquaintance—had barely scratched the surface. That would probably be difficult considering that he didn’t like her more than he did anyone else who wasn’t a Marauder.

            A blustery wind made fiendish work of Lily’s hair before they reached the eatery. She pushed forward and entered so that Sirius lost the chance to not open the doors for her. Some latent hostility was pricking up and paying attention. They were sneering at each other over a menu in a matter of minutes.

            “Are you paying as well?” asked Sirius snidely.

            “I’m paying for myself, yeah,” replied Lily without being baited. She casually studied to menu and made polite responses to the earnest waiter who took their orders. Once the menu buffer was lifted, she folded her hands and met Sirius’ eyes. His cheeks were flushed with the change from cold to warm, but the skin around his eyes was still white. Sirius didn’t look away from her; his itching curiosity was obvious and he threw out the first remark again.

            “So. What is this, Evans?”

            “Just lunch is all,” she answered smoothly. “We need to talk.”

            “I _don’t_ talk,” said Sirius, accentuating each word. Blinking away from the intense stare of his clear grey eyes, Lily felt confused. He was watching her with each movement, forming each word carefully in his mouth. His voice was low and entrancing. He was even… _checking her out_? _Was he flirting with her_?

            This was Sirius, friend of James.

            “Are you flirting with me?” asked Lily baldly, recoiling in shock. Sirius smirked and leaned back in his chair, rocking it on two legs. The white pallor was spreading back from his eyes. He drummed his long white fingers on the tabletop, restless; he was always restless.

            “Isn’t that what you’re here for?”

            “What? No!” Lily was aghast, her stomach reeling. “You…you pig. I’m your best mate’s girlfriend!”

            “Yeah? And you invited me here.” Sirius stated it like it was only natural, even though his eyes were disgusted as usual. Somehow, he had convinced himself as to this circumstance and used it to fuel his low opinion of her. There was something marvelous—if not also grotesque—about how his mind had conceived something like that. “Does James know?”

            “No---”

            “Did you ever mention anything like this to him?”

            “No, but—”

            “There you are. Would he be happy if he knew the circumstances of—”

            “Will you _shut up_?” she demanded.

            Lily jumped; the kindly waiter placed their orders on the table. She thanked her stars that she had only gotten a cup of chocolate because her stomach might not take anything else. The dark powers at Sirius Black’s command took and twisted her intestines, making the relationship of the Marauders that she had so idolized swim in and out of focus.

            “You’re disgusting, you’re foul,” she spat in a whisper, vengefully stirring her steaming drink and fixing him with a livid stare. “How often do you do this? You…you’re his best mate—”

            “Now it’s about James?” asked Sirius pointedly. He spoke evenly, with a conversational pitch, belying nothing but his most evidently negative idea of her. Even if he never acted dramatic, everything about Sirius was. Like the repugnance that trickled over his trilling vowels when he mocked her.

            “It was always about him, but you’re too much of a bloody prick to think that any girl could like him more than you.”

            “Is that what I think?” asked Sirius with a dead calm. In a far patch of her grey matter, Lily realized that he was probably furious. He was never simply well-adjusted or mildly uncomfortable.

            “Well, what else?” Lily snapped. “I did nothing to lead you on and I still don’t want you to…eh...”

            “What? Put the moves on you?” More mockery.

            “You sound so stupid saying that.”

            “Don’t I always sound stupid to you?” replied Sirius knowingly.

            “What?” exclaimed Lily, taking an overeager sip of chocolate and stinging her tongue. She munched on a sugar biscuit to give herself time to recover. “Let’s be honest here, just for a minute. I don’t like you and you don’t like me. Fine, it’s there. But even if you don’t like me, James does, and there’s nothing you’re really willing to do to make me leave-…”

            Trailing off, Lily took a sudden breath. Several threads suddenly ran together in her mind and made sense.

            “You really hoped I was here to hook up with you, didn’t you? So James would have a reason to drop me?”

            Sirius finally looked away, concentrating on the shoes of the woman at the table next to them. _Tap tap tap_ went his fingers. Lily couldn’t believe it: it was true. He hated her that much.

            She flicked a spoonful of piping-hot chocolate at him. It hit him round the collar and the neck. Sirius slapped his skin and swore, hissing in through his teeth.

            “What the fuck?”

            “ _How dare you_? How dare you, Sirius? Did you think about anyone but yourself when you dragged up this plan from your arse—”

            “Oy,” he flared angrily, “I don’t need this from you, Evans. I didn’t invite you here, it was the other way around. I don’t need this.”

            Sirius stood up, uncontrolled and heedlessly frustrated, looking mutinous. Lily stood, too.

            “You need it from someone,” Lily said heatedly. “You didn’t even think…didn’t think of James, didn’t think of anyone…”

            For some reason, Sirius was staring at her now with the strangest sort of glance. She didn’t know that only a year or so ago, James had shouted at Sirius in almost the same way when Sirius had let Snape into the tunnel under the Whomping Willow. Lily did know, however—or have some inkling of—the fact that Sirius was probably considering something that made him think of James when he slowly sat down again. Only James could make Sirius back off, and the thought of James was good enough to make him sit back down.

            “I did think of Prongs,” he muttered.

            “Not too much,” replied Lily tartly.

            Sirius picked up his head with an intense ire.

            “Never say that I didn’t, Evans. I’m his best mate—”

            “And I’m his girlfriend and my name is Lily. Deal with it. You’d have to be—” Lily searched for words. Something that Minnie Bloxam had once said flitted into Lily’s head. “—you’d have to _do_ something terribly cruel to disregard that. Can't we just be on the same side?”

            Sirius studied her clinically for the first time. That was, for the first time since he had set himself against her, Sirius considered Lily meaningfully as a person. He thought thoroughly and Lily could practically watch his agile brain sifting through everything. She felt the brilliant zing of his crackling glare, which was how she could tell that he was still ruminating and not coming up with some one-liner to her feel badly about knowing James.

            The waiter brought them complementary Chocolate Frogs.

            Lily ate hers in three bites.

            Time passed.

            Sirius licked some of his coffee off his lips, but he didn’t drink or think very quickly. Soon, she was the impatient one.

            “What, Sirius?” asked Lily tiredly. “What are you thinking? And try to be honest.”

            After one more pause, Sirius answered Lily in a plain voice without a derisive pitch and sarcastic undertone (a voice Lily couldn’t remember hearing out of him).

            “I thought that you weren’t being serious when you went out with Prongs. He’d been dying to date you. I thought you were fucking with him.”

            That hurt, that did hurt. But she had asked him for it. Lily let that particular little happy bubble soak into nothing before she came up with something to say.

            “In which way?”

            Sirius waved his hand dismissively. He took a long sip of his coffee, the drink not being as hot as it could have been.

            “Emotionally. I’d know if it was in the other way.”

            Lily drained the chocolate pensively and ignored his faint dodge of her question. Sirius was back to watching her again, marking her with his grey, pinpoint eyes. This conversation had drawn out a degree of emotional candor and frankness uncharacteristic of Sirius. In fact, all of this was uncharacteristic of Sirius. Yet there was no great shift in the earth; he looked just the same—aristocratic, derisory, and hot—as he had looked when she met him. Lily couldn’t see if anything had changed and it frustrated her mightily.

            He was making her restless. She took out her change purse and tore forth some knuts and a sickle to cover her drink. Lily should have set a time limit on this day.

            Sirius showed mild interest in this.

            “We’re done, then?”

            “Don’t sound so pleased.”

            “I’m not pleased, as I woke up early for all of this.”

            “Then we’ll make it worth your while,” retorted Lily, changing course. “Let’s walk and talk.”

            Sirius groaned and rolled his eyes now, flicking away his hair again.

            “We’re not friends, Lily. Not friends, not mates, not anything. We just---whatever. We can't talk.”

            “Pay up and let’s go,” ordered Lily. She fixed him with her most discomforting stare and hoped it would work, forcing Sirius to lay out his money and go. He pulled each knut with slow deliberation, and he flipped the coins carefully into a pile. If she had known him a bit better, she would have the foreboding sense that he had wrangled up a plan.

            Sirius got up and followed Lily without a word. They were halfway down Diagon Alley before Lily snapped under the tension of their silence. She was very angry now, and just how had he managed to make her so furious without doing anything? Lily found herself disliking Sirius as much as she ever had because of his blatant refusal to join in with her plans. She wanted him to be nice, _nice_! They should have bonded and formed a new and creative relationship. This outreach maneuver worked in buddy films everywhere.

            “I’m done,” Lily declared, storming towards an alleyway to Disapparate home. “You’ve made your point. Nice and silent, very bloody spectacular. I tried but—”

            A strong hand grabbed her arm, roughly, and turned her to face him. The gesture made Lily spitting mad and she wrenched her hands away. Suddenly, Sirius’ face presented itself: Lily saw his storm eyes and the wild thing inside of them that was Sirius’ regret and disappointment and determination framed by stark black lashes. She was arrested. A minute after, Sirius tried to kiss her.

            Lily shoved him as hard as she could and he fell right back into a wall of bricks, remaining upright by only a narrow chance. Without thinking, she pulled out her wand. Lily couldn’t recall having such feral anger in quite some time, maybe since some upset caused by James. The sight of Sirius staggering slightly as he regained his balance, the dust accumulated on his coat from the slap against the wall, it all laughed with her in her flagrant rage.

            “You bastard. You dumb son of—”

            The sad part was how much of a lie the Marauders had been. Sirius wasn’t their brother or their friend. That was what infuriated her. He had broken her idea of a real truth. Would she tell James? Could she? Would he believe her? Sirius had ruined everything here. For some reason though, he was looking happy and pleased. He even let her curse and swear for a bit before he reacted.

            Sirius came towards her again and Lily kicked some, but he smothered her in his arms. Suddenly everything was awash in cologne like and unlike James’ and an embrace like and unlike a hug. Sirius stilled her, that was all. He was actually _hugging_ Lily until she settled. What was happening? Maybe the earth had shattered. Her anger evaporated into a fat mist of confusion and she found herself making noises that resembled dry sobs onto his comfortable shoulders.

            Woman’s instinct told Lily that everything was all right, or it would be. She disentangled herself and watched him closely.

            With a slide of his thumb, Sirius wiped his lip. Blood had come from somewhere. He observed it carefully and then he smiled. It wasn’t a happy smile anymore or a subversive smile, but it was genuine in some way. It was satisfied. It acknowledged Lily with due note. The planes of his faces shifted into this new form and tapped the outer region of Lily’s heart.

            “Good, Lily. Good. I’m glad you did that. Things might work out after all.”

            Lily opened her mouth, still befuddled.

            “Sirius…”

            “Sirius what?” he asked. “I don’t mack it with my best mate’s girl. If you had let me, I would have made Prongs break up with you. One way or another.” His eyes and inflection told her that he was in deadly earnest. Lily nodded cautiously, still unsure of what to expect from this hurricane-force boy.

            “If you had really meant it when you kissed me, I would have had to tell James.”

            Sirius nodded and sucked on the cut on his mouth.

            “Under different circumstances, I’d be a more fantastic kisser, you know.”

            “I’ll never find out,” said Lily loftily. They both grinned, which marked another expression that Lily had never gotten out of Sirius. His face was better suited to brooding, though, and the grin pulled at his eyes slightly. It made Lily all the more pleased.

            “Hey, Sirius,” began Lily, “James won’t tell me something, and he told me to ask you.”

            “—Yes, he loves you,” interrupted Sirius grudgingly. Her heart skipped, but Lily wrote off Sirius’ comment to _That’s_ _what all girls want to hear_. Sirius was so intense and concentrated and cynical that he barely knew a thing about real love.

            “No, not that. How do you three manage to keep Remus company every month?”

            Sirius weighed the question while he decided privately to punch James for putting Lily up to this. He, too, was much better at acting than verbalizing.

            “Like I said,” he replied abruptly. “We’re not friends, Lily. We’re not friends yet.”

            Lily opened her mouth to retort, but Sirius Disapparated. She pursed her lips, being angry all over again. Then she wasn’t. Then she was. Sirius had a vertiginous passion in him that turned everything upside down.

            Feeling guilty about sidestepping her new friend and spending so many hours with Alice in lieu of seeing Minnie, Lily decided to owl Minnie Bloxam. See what was what. Then she could devote a quiet evening to reflecting about this afternoon.

            Lily didn’t comprehend the lot of it, but by her forceful rejection she had proved to Sirius Black her loyalty, her vigor, and her guts. That was all he cared about and all he had ever doubted about her. His passion brought out hers just like it brought out the passion in James: rash, messy doing without much consideration for consequences. None of the three were very different, after all that. James, Sirius, and Lily shared a few traits in common. The next day, when Peter tried to make a derisory comment about Lily to butter up Sirius, the contemptuous Marauder shot Peter down with just a stare and a _tap tap tap_ of his never-resting fingers.

_I have, um, many thoughts on this chapter. I have many thoughts on Sirius, actually, because he is one of my favorite characters and he is my favorite of all James’ friends. To cut my digressions to a smaller size, let me say a few things. I used many cliché fanfiction situations in this chapter, but I fiddled with the outcomes so that they wouldn’t be cliché and (I believe) untrue. Also, I characterized Sirius as the canon really shows him, which is not as the drunken, loony goofball, but as a reckless and rebellious kid who hurts himself but never tries to hurt his friends. He is most recognized, I think, in loyalty (after all, his Animagus form is a dog), but here Lily would see him for his passion more than anything else. And I hate anything Lily/Sirius, so I would never condone that._

_This chapter is long—10 pages in Times New Roman—because I (a) love Sirius (b) feel bad for being so delayed and (c) wanted some fluff here. P.S., I think “Cavanaugh Park” is overused in many fics, but that line was perfect for me here. And a big thanks to Anonymous on this chapter because I hadn’t realized the extent of the initial formatting damage._

_Don’t mess it up by not reviewing._

_=) CCJ_

__


	7. Four in a Set

  


“Minnie, what the hell book is that? It’s huge and wriggling, and it’s covered in slime.”

“S’from the Restricted Section,” panted Minnie, who was juggling two other more ordinary but equally heavy books besides. “Need it for some finer points on History of Magic.”

It was only early spring but the N.E.W.T.s professors had been loading them down with practice exercises and essays. Lily was excited by everything, but tired by the trouble, and the war was still going on outside. And they were seventh years; it was almost over.

“I don’t understand how you carry all that.”

“You’re one to talk. Your bag is bursting at the seams.”

“Er, yeah, James put some spell on the fabric to make it lighter for me. Or for himself, actually, so he’s more willing to carry it and keep up appearances.”

They were trudging up a wide stone staircase dotted with many batty statues. Dinner had ended only an hour ago, but a pale half-moon was already hanging in the turquoise sky. Everywhere, upperclassmen were holed up around the castle with stacks of books and parchment rolls, some hurrying down the halls with grey faces and harassed expressions. Lily hadn’t known the library had held so many books, or how the shelves weren’t completely ransacked and bare at this point.

“What do you have tonight?”

“Oh, some essays,” replied Minnie in a fluttering voice like anxious songbird. “Care of Magical Creatures, that buggery about preparing boomslang skin for Potions, this job for History of Magic, and an Arithmancy set that—SHIT!”

Lily jumped at the noise, her hand twitching for her wand. Minnie shouted with the force of a foghorn. The slimy book had slipped from Minnie’s hands and over the railing, sliding with a _fwshhh_ to a stop against the wall a floor below.

“ _Accio, accio_ this ridiculous nonsense—”

“Why don’t you levitate the book in front of you?” suggested Lily helpfully, resettling her satchel over her arm.

“Can’t, the binding is spelled against it. Written by some paranoid fourteenth century wizard who apparently didn’t want the thing to be read—”

“Here, let me take those.” Lily plucked up Minnie’s other spellbooks and grunted at the weight. “Oof. I’m going to the Common Room, but I’ll put these on your bed, yeah?”

“Thanks a load. I think I’ll be studying in my room later after I drop by the library one more time. Are you and James working together tonight?”

“Yes. Sirius and Remus too, but I dunno about Peter. “

“Seems like you’re all getting along well now, aren’t you?” said Minnie prettily, wrapping her arms more firmly around her captive publication. “Friends with Black even, are you?”

“Um, in a way, yeah.” Lily had to admit that she supremely enjoyed when they wanted her around. Sirius was more fun and interesting than she had given him credit for, even when they were neutral acquaintances in past years. Peter had (almost) placed her on the same pedestal of wonder as James, and there could never be a complaint about Remus. “You had the right idea about things.”

“I’m glad. I did say I had a good feeling about you and James.” Minnie winked. The book quivered craftily, and she winced. “See you later then.”

“All right.” Lily turned left at the corridor and followed it up, gaining entrance to the Fat Lady’s domain with the simple recitation of “Moontrimmer.”

She clambered through the portrait hole and dropped her things unceremoniously in a heap by the cozy armchair off the side of the roaring fireplace. Wizards were worse than Muggles with keeping the fire going all the time; it seemed like a bit of an obsession for them although the castle was hardly damp now. 

Lily traipsed up to her room and tossed Minnie’s books toward her bed. She winced as they missed and banged into the dresser, upsetting two lamps and a water cup. The powers that be had made her a witch for a reason, Lily considered ruefully. Drawing her wand, Lily hastily fixed up the mess and made a quick shower. She raked a brush through her damp hair and spritzed on a pinch of perfume before returning to the Common Room.

They were already there and had somehow erected a slapdash fortress of quills, parchment and books in her absence. James was particularly good at making a mess of things in five seconds, though the other three weren’t far behind. On a subconscious level, Lily was mildly surprised to find Peter there. Though he wasn’t going for very many, N.E.W.T.s were nothing short of torture for him—reminders also of the things he was bad at—and he was spending a lot of time alone rehearsing for the individual practicals of the exams, for which the Marauders could be of no help to him.

Sirius regarded her through his shaggy hair and then solicitously rose from her seat.

“Lily,” he said, offering her his wry half smile, which she had learned to be the best he would display in general circumstances.

“Lily!’ said James in his pleasant, glad-to-see-you voice, smoothing away a seat for her on the carpet beside him. Lily snorted. Fat chance there. She sat down in the armchair vacated by Sirius. Sinking onto the carpet, Sirius leaned back against the couch with shove for James.

“Looks like it’s just you and me down here, Prongs.”

“Just brilliant. Not quite the same, Padfoot.”

“James, any chance you were somehow responsible for making the Common Room password a brand of broomstick?” asked Lily archly.

“You should know Prongs has no control over the passwords to the tower Lily,” said Sirius easily, snagging a book and flipping the leaves smoothly. “He’s just a simple student here, one devoted pupil in a crowd.”

“Be glad he didn’t petition the Fat Lady to make it ‘Evans’ again.”

Lily laughed. “I’d almost forgotten that, Remus. Was it fourth year, then?”

“Early fifth,” said Remus bemusedly, lounging on the couch over the heads of his friends and jotting down something on a bit of parchment he was balancing on a fat Transfiguration textbook. James shook his head and turned to look at her with those glittering eyes of his. He shrugged nonchalantly, then winked. Bugger him. Flushed, Lily busied herself with pulling supplies out of her bag.

“Hey, Wormtail, pass me an inkpot, will you?”

“Sure, Prongs,” Peter rifled through one of the satchels on the ground beside him. “Is blue okay?”

“No, I think he’d fancy that scented lavender that he always asks for, Wormtail.”

Peter made no response to Sirius. Lily saw there was a tiredness in Peter’s face, which was drawn and pale. Not dissimilar to Remus’ when the full moon was upon him. Exam work must have been brutal today.

“Blue’s good, Wormtail. Thanks.”

“All right, Peter?” asked Lily genially. It was surprisingly easy to fall into a comfortable friendship with James’ mates these days, but she still felt like she had to observe basic niceties with Peter sometimes. It was a curious thing, but Lily postulated that generally, rather than being irritated, Sirius admired her being so polite to Wormtail in the face of his doing the exact opposite. A slightly fucked up bloke, that one. “How was your day?”

“Oh, fine, Lily.” His voice was strained. “I’m just here to read a for a little. I’m going to do more work on Transfiguration though afterwards. Inanimatus Conjurus and all.“

“Sounds like a good plan…” Lily had lapsed into James’ habit of spreading out all over the place, and she scooted and draped her legs over the chair’s fat arm. She sighed and picked up two Potions texts from the floor. A warm touch clamped gently around her ankle, and rough fingers began some sort of twisting massage.

Without looking up, Lily muttered something to herself and grabbed her Potions notebook. “Stop it, James.”

She heard a snicker. The hand was gone and replaced with a feathery texture. James was sitting against the chair and resting his head on her legs. Lily couldn’t say she minded as long as he wasn’t purposefully distracting her.

The first book would make up the bulk of Slughorn’s essay. Stifling a yawn, Lily focused on the dull language in front of her. _The industrious O.W.L. student will recall the four sanguine properties of the Draught of Peace; a fortiori the learned N.E.W.T. student will not palliate his tertiary Potions diagrams with the folly of increased herbal reexaminings but rather engage in an equanimous study of–_

It was over an hour later when bits of James and Sirius’ conversation began drifting through Lily’s concentrated studying. They were having a heated discussion over their Transfiguration work this evening.

“—You must have misread that last bit of Viridian’s book, Prongs, it clearly says there has to be an upward flick—” 

“—spell doesn’t matter, Padfoot. The essay prompt says, ‘must be indestructible against the standard hexes,’ and Wiblin outlines how it’s the shape that matters not the force—” 

“—but only by making it glass can you get the refraction for the second protective element—” 

“—hit by a Blasting Curse? The most obvious offensive spell would force the vector to bend—” 

“—no other way though, got to be glass or the whole spell chain won’t stick—” 

Lily admitted to listening with a bit of interest, especially as their essays often seemed far above N.E.W.T. level anyway. It was a sign of her more intimate knowledge of James that she had finally seen how truly brilliant he was. Lily loved that James was able, if he was inclined, to carry on an extremely high-level conversation about more than just Quidditch. He was a wellspring of information on magic and, like Sirius, vastly more knowledgeable than Lily about wizarding politics—she supposed that came from his family—but in Transfiguration, James and Sirius were unmatchable. They had never gotten a question wrong in class, to the best of her knowledge, and Transfiguration was a kind magic Lily respected mostly because it was so alien to her, not much like the experience she favored of delicately assembling a potion or complex charm after hours of calculations, observations, and deliberate steps. 

Only a few weeks ago, Lily had come to retrieve James from McGonagall’s office after his class. The old witch was glowing with vigor at whatever conversation they had been having. It had sounded like a debate. Lily didn’t imagine that many students were able to carry on for too long with McGonagall about her devotional subject. Lily had also admitted to herself that seeing James in action was a turn-on, in a way, and for her, he was just as hot when he was being intellectual as when he was soaring away on his broom over the Quidditch pitch. Sometimes, however, as in the case of his essay now, James could overlook the most obvious solutions if they weren’t in his usual repertoire.

“Cushioning Charm,” muttered Lily. “Simple.”

She went back to her book but realized that James and Sirius weren’t bickering anymore. A little alarmed, she peeked up at them and saw Remus doing the same from the couch. When had Peter left? They were both watching at her, askance.

“What did you say, Lily?” asked James.

“Cushioning Charm, simple,” she repeated more loudly. Sirius scoffed, but both he and James were still paying attention.

“Cushioning Charm?”

“Yeah.” Lily worked her way more upright, winching at the stiffness in her body. “You said that the first item would necessarily need to be Transfigured into glass to resist the… um, other effects, right?”

“Yeah, something like that,” waved Sirius. “What of it?”

“Well, if you just added a Cushioning Charm at the end, you’d avoid all the trouble with the basic hexes. Simple hexes, simple charm. Cushioning Charms also employ three locks of special defense, more than enough to protect magicked glass from a Blasting Curse. Probably from some worse curses, too, if you’ve already built in the other ward first. When you do the second-tier transfigurations, just spell for a Cushioning Charm in the final variable.”

There was quiet as the sounds of the crackling fire and other studying students loosely pervaded the space. James and Sirius looked nonplussed; a low chuckle started from behind Remus’ book.

Sirius was the first to smile. He actually tossed his head and gave a short laugh. Lily’s eyes bugged wide. Unprecedented inducements of mirth from Sirius Black. She went red at this special treatment but displayed her dainty smirk all the same.

“Prongs, a Cushioning Charm. A bloody, fucking Cushioning Charm.”

“Yeah,” James mashed his hand through his hair, appearing stunned. “How about that?”

“The key to McGonagall’s essay! Bloody Cushioning Charms. Lily, you _are_ a catch, you know that? Cushioning Charms for fucksake…” Sirius laughed shortly once more and eased back against the couch with aristocratic grace.  “Cushioning Charms. You would have been useful as fuck to have back in fifth year.”

Another pause, this time pregnant with things unsaid, punctuated the conversation. Knowing the cues by now, Lily looked at Remus and saw him freeze, still hidden behind the book. She could only see the back of James’ head, as he had turned away again, but she could imagine the expression. Benign disquiet and a neutral mask. It was about the thing she had asked him over Christmas, and since Sirius hadn’t divulged anything, Lily had loyally deigned not to question James directly again. Slips such as these had happened on a few occasions in the last months, and it was always the same silence. But she had said she’d wait. Prickling with curiosity and clement annoyance, Lily lowered her eyes to her potions book again. _–which, combined with the importunate solution of dried tendrils, produces an effect most ubiquitous to the genus colloquially known to be—_

“She really doesn’t know?” marveled Sirius in a subdued sort of way. Lily saw him glance from her face to James’ to Remus, then back to James, whose hand twitched to his hair again. “You mean you haven’t told her?”

“No, I haven’t, Padfoot,” replied James evenly. “I said I wouldn’t. I’ve said fuck-all about it, as per your wishes. I even said that you should tell her, remember, so it’s entirely your fault if Lily doesn’t know.”

“Well, yeah, but I figured once we were good you’d just go ahead and take care of it—”

“I _am_ sitting here, Sirius, you prick,” snapped Lily. “And I told James I’d wait til you said something, so please don’t… go on about it unless you’re intending to say something. That is, if we’re all talking about the same thing.”

“I think we are.” Remus put down his book and raised an eyebrow at Sirius, who looked at all of their faces in turn. He paused a moment, and then shrugged, closing up his books and throwing them to the side.

“Come on then.” He got to his feet with a lidded expression. “We haven’t got all night; I’ve actually got studying to do.”

“Break time,” said James lightly, getting up and thoughtfully offering Lily a hand. Bewildered, she took it, feeling its sturdiness and flexibility beneath her fingertips, and got to her feet. Remus was neatly organizing his things and Sirius starting off towards the boys’ dorms.

“James, where are we going?”

“Our room, I think. Private like.”

As if Confunded, Lily allowed herself to be led up the boys’ stairs. She had never visited that room before; it was James who by some secret trickery had managed to get to hers.

“Won’t this just look good for me?”

“Lily, everyone’s creeping off into weird parts of the castle to study these days,” said James off-handedly.

“Yeah, guess you’re right. How many have wound up in your bed, though?”

“Ah, but that’s my secret, isn’t it?”

“Wanker.”

She was grateful for the lack of horrible smells or tasteless man decorations in their room. Four beds, two windows, a bunch of trunks. Spartan dressing, really, barring a Quidditch poster and a photograph or so. There was a decent mess and odd knick-knacks piled up in places, but nothing ghastly. James was actually waving his wand and magicking certain piles under a bed or into a trunk. Despite his discomfort, Remus flicked his eyes faintly in amusement at his friend’s behavior and laid down on one of the beds, staring up at the canopy. Lily tried to guess which things belonged to who, and she had gotten James’ right when he showed her to the bed and shoved some blankets out of the way so she could sit. He joined her, putting his arm behind her as if it were natural to him. Opposing them, Sirius sat on the edge of Remus’ bed and hit the prefect’s leg lightly.

“Not contributing, Moony?”

“I’d prefer if you did it,” came his reply.

“Fine.” Sirius settled himself a bit more casually and began, “It’s like this, Lily. We know that Remus here is obviously laboring under a certain condition—”

“Don’t tell me you brought me up here to just to tell me that,” said Lily drily.

“—and while he has clued you in to that secret, I don’t believe you know how it is that we’ve managed to keep him company every cycle. Which, of course, we do.”

“I have been wondering that,” she admitted, her eyes straying to James’ face. He was looking away again, not meeting her gaze, instead staring off at the lone shoe beside Remus’ bed. Lily wondered at it, but Sirius and his story were too beguiling to lose sight of for long.

“When we were just starting classes, we came up with a plan so that we’d be able to make things easier for Remus and be in no real danger ourselves. He wouldn’t tell us he was a werewolf outright, you see, back in first year, but James and I noticed things and confronted him about it. I think it was something similar for you. He had to spill.”

Lily nodded. So they were his best mates and they figured out he was a werewolf. Remus had probably been terrified about letting them know. The prone figure on the bed gave nothing away, however, and Lily was blind to where this was leading.

Sirius pressed on, with a ghost of a smile on his lips.

“It might be easier to come out with it all at once. Keep in mind this was all hatched when we were eleven, so it might seem harebrained to you now. The long and short of it is that we decided that me, Prongs, and Peter were going to become Animagi in order to be with Remus during his transformations.”

A clock ticked audibly.

Then again.

She expected Sirius to go on, but he had stopped, facing her levelly. James and Remus were no help, and Lily suddenly felt the icy force of it all blast through her. Awash in a mixture of shock, awe, and some more shock, Lily considered each of her sprinting thoughts as they raced past her in her own head. They were Animagi. Peter Pettigrew was an Animagus, Sirius Black was an Animagus, James…

“You—you what?”

“I think you heard,” said Sirius, almost gentle, hunching towards her. “We decided to become Animagi. Werewolves are only a danger to humans you know. Basically.”

She didn’t realize it, but she had jumped to her feet. In the blink of an eye, James had stretched out his hand but Lily was already stalking to the middle of the room.  She spun on her heel and turned from face to face. James looked almost miserable and Sirius nonchalant, and Remus didn’t look like anything more than a stiff body on an examiner’s table, yet only truth did she discover in all their mixed demeanors.

“That’s—that’s unprecedented. I think. I mean, I dunno. None of you are registered.” She stated that as fact. “You’re all students, you go to school, you—you’ve been Animagi for how many years?”

“Only two,” offered James. “We did it in fifth year.” Lily saw his expression and realized with a tumbling heart that he was afraid, his whole honest body begging for her approval. A part of her yearned to wrap her arms around him and kiss him, but burning questions still lurked too brightly. She wondered if she’d ever have a satisfactory answer for them all.

“Yeah, like he said, the spells were all worked out by fourth year and we fixed it in fifth,” continued Sirius. “There were snags, of course. Where to practice and how to get all the books from under Pince’s nose. Getting to the Shrieking Shack where Remus went at night. That’s where things like Prongs’ family’s Invisibility Cloak came in—”

“Okay, okay, I’ve got that bit,” interrupted Lily. That cloak was one of James’ prized possessions and she had included it in her theories long ago. “but this all happened fifth year? _Fifth_? No wonder you’re so bloody good at Transfiguration, you—”

A new thought occurred to her. “Ah _hah_ , so the nicknames that cropped up around then—”

Sirius nodded. “Right. We knew pretty much what we would transform into by fourth year. The Animagi thing put the finishing touches on the Marauders, see, and it all went from there. Probably why our heads were all swelled a bit too much at the time, as you may recall.”

Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. Moony, a werewolf, and Wormtail—

“Are you in for a show, Evans?” asked Sirius blandly, rising from his seat. “C’mon, Prongs. Too bad Wormtail isn’t here. Peter’s animal is a rat, just so you know.”

“A rat,” Lily repeated dully, but she was still unprepared for when James got to his feet with a pained smile for her and casually threw up his hands.

“All right, Padfoot.”

What happened next was nothing short of the confirmation of the inconceivable. There Lily was, caught up a few of the most potent feelings of her life as Sirius Black dropped to the ground and came out on all fours as a hulking black dog. As _James_ —James!—dexterously fell into the form of some kind a deer, a stag, she guessed, replete with antlers and hooves and little black spots where his glasses ought to be.

Lily opened her mouth; she closed it abruptly. She repeated. James changed back first and Sirius followed, and still she found that she didn’t quite have the right thing to say. Remus, cunningly invisible on the sidelines of things, had sat up to watch and now approached her.

“Lily,” he said, planting himself directly in front of her so that her vision spanned no farther than his face, “I—just don’t think too badly of me, yeah? I’ll see you later.” Then he went to the door and paused for a small smile before slipping down the stairs.

“Think I’ll be off, too,” said Sirius lightly, snatching up a spare quill from the desk by the wall. “That’s enough chat for this evening. Coming to finish the essay, Prongs?”

“In a minute,” mumbled James, and she knew he intended to talk with her. Sirius shrugged.

“Fine, mate, but I’m moving on with the fourth question.”

James waved hand impatiently and Sirius cuffed him, once, friendly and encouraging. His smile faded as he looked at Lily, but there was no anger or sadness, only impassivity. Sirius didn’t asked to be judged

“Later, then, Lily.”

He was gone. She and James faced each other for a long time. He sat down and gazed, so softly, at her, and she saw him. Lily knew that for some reason, James wasn’t sure whether she would go to him or flee, accept that he was an Animagus or reject him. James could be an idiot.

As deliberately as when they first kissed, Lily glided over to James and lowered herself down before him. This time, she sat on his lap with her legs and arms wrapped around him, their faces inches away. Close. He blinked, whetting his lips lightly with his tongue.

“And?”

“And what?”

His arms closed around her, firm now, and a sparkling light returned to glimmer in his eyes.

“And what… erm, do you think, Lily?”

“Well,” She knew there would be a lot of thinking to do, but none of it like he supposed, “I… like it just fine.”

“You do?” He saw her lips, like always, and her faintest freckle trails all over her nose. Her eyes James could not even comment on, and a flush of strong emotion—joy, perhaps—reanimated his limbs and heart.

“I…” She was breathing his own breath now; he felt her heat on his face, “do. Very much.”

Then James kissed her, holding her body to his with roaming hands and a mouth that couldn’t be satisfied, and Lily removed his glasses so that there was no trouble when they fell back onto the sheets.

“You see why I couldn’t tell you, don’t you?” he asked charmingly, letting up to hold her face above his and seriously quizz her with his eyes.

“Yeah,” grumbled Lily, not wanting distractions and delicately plucking at his robes with her fingers. “It’s just… unreal.”

“This is more unreal to me,” pointed out James matter-of-factly, emphasizing his words by burying one hand against her scalp and running his thumb across her lips. “I can’t tell you how happy I am that you don’t mind.”

“Hmmph, that’s yet to be seen. It _is_ a long sight better than anything else I’d imagined. No one else, er, knows about it, do they?” asked Lily, her eyes unfocused slightly with pleasure.

James grinned and leaned up to whisper in her ear. “No one else.”

His words tickled her with a passion—what were these words referring to again?—and Lily felt herself going under once more into a cloud of lust. This was probably not a good idea. “I er—wait, stop.”

“Stop what?” he asked with innocence, opening his lips to her smooth neck. “I’m following your lead is all.” The hot press of his tongue turned her attention for a moment, and she graciously yielded James free rein to move around her body for just a little while longer, unable to deflect his touch or her quiet sounds of happiness. She felt his mouth form into a smile against her collarbone and James’ hand reached wickedly into her robes.

“Damn you… wait…” Lily struggled upright, breathing more heavily than she’d like to admit, and grabbed James’ head from where it had wandered and forced it up to meet her. She handed his glasses to him tartly. “Here you are then. I have an essay to complete.”

“But, Lily—”

“Study break, remember?”  Lily boxed his ears lightly. “That means more studying after. Just because your Transfiguration abilities are attractive—”

“Are they really?”

“ _James_!” she squealed as he took her in his arms again and kissed her, smothering her with his weight and excitable lips. He didn’t know it, but Lily loved the feeling of being pressed against him—skin to skin, even—of being grounded in his physical presence especially when things like _this_ were happening in other areas of his life. It made him more human. Nevertheless she beat her fist loosely against his shoulder, and James ultimately relented with the most mischievous and self-satisfied smile imaginable. Lily rolled away from him and balanced on the edge of the mattress, tidying her clothing and hair. James, on the other side, was doing much the same.

She couldn’t go on like this, dealing with him and his awful bestial effects on her at the most inopportune times and places.

“We really need to shag soon,” Lily muttered, attending to the clasps on her robe most studiously. From the varied pressure on the mattress, she felt James go totally stiff.

“Er, what was that?”

Making no answer, Lily walked to the door and paused, like Sirius and Remus before her. James was stranded by the lump in his throat, standing beside his bed with a most gracious and hopeful expression in his eyes. Lily laughed—a pleased, feminine laugh that carried her complete affection and most importantly her acceptance of him, a laugh that was a conveyance of everything James had ever hoped to obtain from Lily Evans since he first began to love her.

“Come on, James,” she said, amused and unaware actively of what exactly had transpired that evening. “You’re friends are waiting.”

Although James was strangely contemplative, it was not long before his characteristically huge grin set up shop over the rest of his face and he followed Lily downstairs.

“Yes, they are.”

 

THE END.

I’ve been away a long while, but this is the finale. I hope it’s enjoyable and thank you for anyone reading this for the first time or picking up from where I left off ‘lo these many months. You’re fantastic, and good night.

 


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